You know the old saying; "One bad apple can spoil the whole bunch?" It may be true but I think it depends on who's watching the apples.
One of the great things about living in the internet age is we can communicate instantly. One of the terrible things about living in the internet is that we can communicate instantly. I've often thought that the greatest invention of our age would be an app that paused all outbound text, email and social posting for at least a few hours so we could read it again to see if the content was really something we wanted to say.
It's only human to want our grievances validated. When we feel strongly about something we want support from other people, so we reach out and share our problems in hopes they'll agree with us and validate that we do indeed have a legitimate grievance.
Because no one has invented the "pause before sending" app a lot of stuff written about our grievances in a heated moment spreads, then words written in anger touch a nerve and start a fire that was completely unintentional.
This is where watching the apples comes in. As a fellow human being I feel a certain amount of responsibility to help keep my online world tidy. I mean after all there is no agency charged with the task of checking in every once in awhile to try and defuse a potentially bruised apple to see if they really intended the consequences of what may have been a spur of the moment vent, or if the intention was to start spoiling the barrel. Either way knowledge is power and power is what helps us protect the bunch.
We think that human beings have good hearts that sometimes get bruised and start to spoil a little, but if we all take a little extra time to check in and appreciate the parts that aren't bruised we'd all get a lot more sweet apple and a lot less spoiled barrels.
The moral of this story, if there is one, is to check your barrel once in a while. Maybe you can find a solution before there is a problem. Just imagine if someone had checked in on one of their apples before something bad happened?
All net proceeds are donated to the Innocence Project.
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